David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, H.R. 350 is carefully balanced to guarantee that the House is able to work its will, while providing a meaningful way to ensure that we here in the House can work our will while meaningfully providing a way to ensure that Congress acknowledges and fully debates the consequences of new mandates on consumers, workers and small businesses. Such mandates cost businesses, as has been pointed out, consumers and workers, about $700 billion annually, or about $7,000 per household. That is about a third the size of the entire Federal budget. It is important to note that H.R. 350 does nothing to roll back existing mandates, nor does it prevent the enactment of additional mandates. As written in section 2 of the bill, ``The implementation of this act will enhance the awareness of prospective mandates on the private sector without adversely affecting existing environmental, public health or safety laws or regulations.'' Let me say that one more time, as I did during the rules debate. ``The implementation of this act will enhance the awareness of prospective mandates on the private sector without adversely affecting existing environmental, public health or safety laws or regulations.'' In other words, Mr. Chairman, H.R. 350 is a straightforward, common sense, bipartisan bill that will make Congress more accountable by requiring more deliberation and more information when Federal mandates are proposed. I urge my colleagues not to undermine this very sound, bipartisan legislation. So I am compelled to urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment offered by my friend from New York.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to rise and congratulate the gentleman from California (Mr. Condit) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), my friends, once again, as I did during the rules debate, for their very fine work on this important issue. I, too, like my friend, the gentleman from Sanibel, Florida (Mr. Goss), the Vice Chairman of the Committee on Rules, consider myself to be an environmentalist, and I believe that we will be able, as we move ahead with this measure, to have a very fair and balanced debate on environmental issues as they come forward. That is the idea. All we are doing with this measure is we are triggering a process whereby questions can be raised and a debate can take place and then a decision will be made by this institution which will, again, as I said during both the Committee on Rules and during the debate earlier, it will make all of us accountable for whether or not we proceed with the imposition of what could be a very, very costly mandate. We had some very interesting testimony that took place up in the Committee on Rules, and I would like to share a couple of quotes from the testimony by Ryan Null, who is the owner of Tristate Electronic Manufacturing. I quoted him during the Committee on Rules' debate. I have just a couple of other quotes that I would like to use, and then we are looking forward anxiously to the great words of the movers of this effort, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Condit). Mr. Null said in his testimony, ``The government requirements that a small business must comply with range from retirement plans and OSHA requirements to ever changing environmental regulations. While these regulations may have originated with good intentions, the costs of implementation for a small business is truly overwhelming. Federal mandates and regulations are a constant hurdle for my business.'' Mr. Chairman, he goes on to say ``Government mandates not only take away valuable time and resources from my small business, but ironically some government regulations go so far as to provide disincentives for my company to grow. I find it hard to understand how the lawmakers in a country who pride itself on being the land of opportunity and free enterprise pass laws that are anti-growth and anti-business. These government mandates seem to defy common sense. For example, if the Family and Medical Leave Act were to apply for my business, we would be weighed down by an unworkable administrative and financial burden. Legislative proposals in the past have proposed to lower the small business exemption to 25 employees. With the threat of legislation that would expand the Family and Medical Leave Act, I feel as a protective measure I should probably hold off hiring any new employees.'' There is very clear evidence, Mr. Chairman, that the continued imposition of mandates without having this institution be accountable are very costly and, as Mr. Null said, anti-growth and can jeopardize the future of the small business sector of our economy. So I hope very much that we will see passage of this thoughtful measure and we will look forward again to the consideration of amendments next week. But I want to congratulate the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder), my colleagues on the Committee on Rules who have come here, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) especially, who made his maiden speech on this issue, and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) and others who have come forward to work on behalf of it. I look forward to seeing this bipartisan measure being one of the first very important items to come out of this historic 106th Congress.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my very good friend from Atlanta, the distinguished Chairman of the Subcommittee on Rules and Organization for yielding me this time. I want to commend him for his tremendous work on this legislation. As the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) noted, the Mandates Information Act was reported by the Committee on Rules last year and overwhelmingly approved in a bipartisan way by this House. It addresses a clear bias against the private sector in the way we consider legislation subject to the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, legislation that was also reported by the Committee on Rules in 1995, and, as was said, overwhelmingly approved by this House. I also want to join, Mr. Speaker, in congratulating my colleagues, the gentleman from California (Mr. Condit) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), for once again introducing this legislation. I also want to commend them for their bipartisan efforts and their diligence in working with our Committee on Rules to ensure that the best possible bill was reported out by our committee. I agree with the sponsors that the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act does not go far enough to discourage Congress from imposing costly mandates on the private sector. Such mandates cost businesses, consumers and workers about $700 billion annually, or $7,000 per household. That is more than a third the size of the entire Federal budget. These mandates are particularly burdensome on families attempting to climb the economic ladder. Over the next five years, Mr. Speaker, 3 million people will move from welfare to private sector payrolls. Small businesses will provide most of those jobs, yet the imposition of new mandates upon existing burdens will reduce the resources available to create these much-needed jobs. Mr. Speaker, it very important to note that H.R. 350 does nothing, absolutely nothing, to roll back some of the unnecessary mandates that exist, nor does it prevent in any way the imposition of additional mandates. I would like to read now directly section 2 of the bill, which reads as follows: ``The implementation of this Act will enhance the awareness of prospective mandates on the private sector without adversely affecting existing environmental, public health, or safety laws or regulations.'' Mr. Speaker, I want to read that again, because I think it is very important to note that as we proceed with debate on this, that section 2 of the bill states, ``The implementation of this Act will enhance the awareness of prospective mandates on the private sector without adversely affecting existing environmental, public health, or safety laws or regulations.'' Mr. Speaker, in other words, H.R. 350 is a straightforward, common sense, bipartisan bill that will make Congress more accountable by requiring more deliberation and more information when Federal mandates are proposed. This is important because, in reality, mandates are a hidden tax that consumers are forced to pay through increased prices, reduced job opportunities and more red tape for small businesses. The procedures in H.R. 350 can in no way be used as a roadblock to legislation. Rather, they are intended to serve as a very small, smooth, speed bump that will allow affected groups to provide input to committees early in the development stage of legislation on more cost effective alternatives. It is on this point that the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act has been so successful. As Jim Blum of the Congressional Budget Office noted in his testimony before the Committee on Rules, ``Before proposed legislation is marked up, committee staffs and individual Members are increasingly requesting our analysis about whether the legislation would create new Federal mandates, and, if so, whether their costs would exceed the thresholds set by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. In many instances, the Congressional Budget Office is able to inform the sponsor about the existence of a mandate and provide informal guidance on how the proposal might be restructured to eliminate the mandate or reduce its cost.'' He goes on to say, ``That use of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act early in the legislative process may not involve the law's formal procedural hurdles, but it appears to have had an effect on the number and burden of intergovernmental mandates in enacted legislation.'' Mr. Speaker, this rule will allow us to fully deliberate H.R. 350, and I am looking forward to engaging in a very thoughtful debate on this legislation. But I want to end with a very simple message that was relayed to the Committee on Rules by Ryan Null, the owner of Tristate Electronic Manufacturing in Hagerstown, Maryland. He said, I only ask that Congress, in its wisdom, please remember that it is hard enough to be an independent business owner. The laws that you pass and the costs associated with them have a profound effect on our bottom line. I know I would sleep a little better at night knowing that Congress was thinking seriously about the cost impact of legislation on small business owners. Mr. Speaker, with that, I urge adoption of this rule and adoption of the bill.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I urge support of this rule. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the very energetic, hardworking and peripatetic chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary who is eager to address this issue.

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from South Boston, Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), my very good friend, and say I am very happy to see him here, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time that I will be yielding will be for debate purposes only. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.)

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 31 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, let me first begin here by commending both the chairman and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, as well as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), the ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules, for their cooperation in making this first rule of the 106th Congress an open rule that will permit consideration of an important piece of legislation. Specifically, this resolution makes in order H.R. 99, providing for the temporary extension of Federal Aviation Administration programs under, as I said, an open rule providing for one hour of general debate. The rule makes in order the amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in the Congressional Record and numbered 1. The rule also contains several waivers that are necessary for the bill to be considered today. The waivers of sections 302(f) and 303(a) of the Congressional Budget Act are necessary because Congress did not adopt the fiscal year 1999 budget resolution and, pursuant to House Resolution 5, fiscal year 1999 budget allocations have not been published in the Congressional Record. Also, the waiver of clause 7 of rule XVI is necessary because Title II of the amendment in the nature of a substitute was not part of the introduced bill. Title II is language for the Committee on Ways and Means that allows expenditures from the Aviation Trust Fund. Finally, the waiver of clause 4(a) of rule XIII is needed because the report on H.R. 99 was not filed by the Committee of Transportation and Infrastructure until yesterday. Members who preprinted their amendments in the Record prior to their consideration will be given priority and recognition. The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole is authorized to postpone votes during consideration of the bill and reduce votes to 5 minutes on a postponed question if the vote follows a 15-minute vote. Finally, the rule provides for one motion to recommit with or without instructions. Madam Speaker, last year the House passed a very comprehensive FAA reauthorization bill, but there was not enough time to work through a conference with the other body. As a result, the omnibus appropriations bill passed last year contained only a 6-month extension of the FAA's Airport Improvement Program. That short-term extension expires on March 31 of this year. In order to give the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the full House time to develop a comprehensive FAA reauthorization bill this year, we need to extend the 6-month short-term authorization through the rest of this fiscal year. Without passage of H.R. 99, no new Airport Improvement Program grants can be issued after March 31. AIP grants fund a variety of airport safety and capacity-enhancing projects such as runway extensions, taxiway construction, and noise abatement projects. As more and more people fly every day, it is important to maintain the highest safety standards at our Nation's airports. I understand that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Shuster) plans to bring to the House a comprehensive aviation reform bill later this year that will address many very important and complex issues. Those issues may range from whether to increase the number of airport slots at busy airports, to what kind of passenger protection provisions should be included, to how the Aviation Trust Fund should be handled. These complex issues cannot be fully addressed before the current AIP reauthorization expires. Passage of H.R. 99 provides Congress with enough time to produce a comprehensive aviation reform bill. Therefore, Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to pass this very fair, balanced, and open rule and also the bipartisan FAA reauthorization legislation. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I rise in response to the eloquent words of my Democratic colleague to say that yes, we too want very much to put Social Security and Medicare first. In fact, the chairman of our Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer), has made it clear that he shares the goal of seeing that 62 percent figure, which the President called for in his State of the Union message, to shore up and ensure the strength of Social Security. At the same time, we have an overcharge, and the American people deserve a rebate. Neither the administration nor Republicans in the Congress anticipated the tremendous flow of revenues that have come into the Federal Treasury as a by-product of the tremendous economic growth which has taken place because of the policies of this Congress and, yes, in working with the President. But the fact is, the money belongs to the American people and we should do everything that we possibly can to ensure that that overcharge is in fact rebated. But we do share that priority of strengthening Social Security and Medicare, ensuring that we improve public education, strengthening our national defense capability, and, of course, reducing that tax burden on working families.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at its organizational meeting on January 6, 1999, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1)(A) of rule XI of the rules of the House, the Rules Committee adopted in an open meeting, with a quorum present, its committee rules for the 106th Congress. Pursuant to clause 2(a)(1)(D) of rule XI of the rules of the House and clause (d) of rule I of the rules of the Committee on Rules, the rules of the Committee on Rules are hereby submitted for printing in the Congressional Record.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) the very, very distinguished chairman of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. (Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), vice chairman of the committee, my very good friend from Sanibel.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, before you leave the Chair, I want to extend my hearty congratulations to you. Mr. Speaker, as has been said, the customary 30 minutes is already yielded to my very good friend and the distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from South Boston, Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley). Mr. Speaker, I think it is fair to characterize this House rules package as one of the most bipartisan in decades. The overwhelming majority of the changes provided for in this package were developed by a bipartisan task force of the House Committee on Rules. Working extensively over the past 2 years, with the nonpartisan office of the Office of Parliamentarian, the task force developed a more rational and orderly set of House rules, and their recommendations are fully embedded in this resolution. Adopting the rules of the House in a recodified format will make the House easier to understand. The House has not undertaken a comprehensive revision of its rules since 1880. Many of the previous rules are obsolete, confusing, misleading, incomplete and poorly organized. Some of the rules have been understood and implied inconsistently due to the awkward way in which those rules were drafted. The result is that the legislative process and the activities of the House frequently prove difficult to understand and learn, much less to master. Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to heartily commend my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, specifically the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), the ranking member of the committee; the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall) and the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for the tremendous effort that they and members of their staff put into this project. We owe special thanks to the Parliamentarians, and I specifically want to mention Mr. Johnson and his staff. They worked long and hard on this issue. They spent countless hours, weeknights and weekends, drafting this new structure of the rules. As a result of their work, the rules for the 106th Congress will be clearly more logical and user friendly. Mr. Speaker, specifically the rules have been cut nearly in half, condensed from 51 rules down to 28 rules. Obsolete and archaic provisions have been removed, but the most important citations have been retained for purposes of consistency with precedent and practice. These are significant bipartisan institutional reforms which will make it easier for Members to do their work and for the average American to understand and appreciate the legislative process. In light of the remarks by the Speaker here in the well about his desire to see greater faith in this institution by the American people, I believe that having this process more understandable is a very, very important thing, and that is accomplished with this package. Now, Mr. Speaker, in addition to the recodification that makes up the vast majority of H. Res. 5, the resolution makes a number of technical changes to the standing rules of the House and those are contained in section 1 of the resolution. For example, H. Res. 6 in the 104th Congress included a provision in clause 2 of rule X which requires committees to approve an oversight plan before February 15th of the first session of each Congress and submit it to the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight and the Committee on House Oversight. In addition, the rule established a point of order against consideration of the entire committee funding resolution on the House floor if the oversight plan was not adopted and submitted before February 15th. In 1997, the committee assignment process on both sides of the aisle was not completed by February 15th and certain committees were unable to organize in time. Also, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct was unable to organize until September 1997 due to the establishment of the ethics reform task force. Consideration of the committee funding resolution on the floor should not be tied to the adoption of oversight plans by committees, particularly if one or both parties have not completed the committee assignment process. The purpose of the rule change was to encourage committees to plan oversight activities in advance, and to adopt those plans in public session. Therefore, the resolution retains the February 15th date to encourage committees to adopt their oversight plans early. Now, Mr. Speaker, clause 5(d) of rule X limits the number of subcommittees that a committee may have to not more than five subcommittees. Exemptions are provided for the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. To facilitate more responsible programmatic oversight, which is a priority of the Speaker, the resolution permits those committees, subject to the five- subcommittee limitation, to establish a sixth subcommittee if one of the six subcommittees is an ``oversight'' subcommittee. The practice of pairing, which involves absent Members arranging with other absent Members on opposite sides of a specific question the ability to stipulate how they would have voted, would be eliminated in favor of the more certain system of putting a statement in the Record as to how the Member would have voted, which appears immediately after the vote. The headings for these statements will read ``stated `yea' '' or ``stated `nay.' '' These statements do not have to be read from the floor if they are submitted in a timely fashion to the clerks, generally 1 to 2 hours after the vote. If a significant time has elapsed since the vote, a Member can ask unanimous consent on the floor that his statement of how he might have voted appear immediately after the vote. Finally, section 1 contains two ethics-related rules, changes which were recommended in a bipartisan fashion by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The first change closes an existing loophole in the rules by requiring committee consultants to abide by the key provisions of the Code of Official Conduct. Those provisions include the requirement that they conduct themselves in a manner which reflects credibly on the House, the conflict-of-interest provisions and the gift rule. Mr. Speaker, the second change conforms House rules to recent Supreme Court decisions relating to honoraria earned by certain lower-level Federal employees. Such employees would be permitted to receive honoraria, such as compensation for an article, speech or appearance for activities not related to official duties. Section 2 of the resolution consists of ``Separate Orders'' which do not change any of the standing rules of the House. These are more or less housekeeping provisions which deem certain actions will waive the application of certain rules of the House. For example, because Congress failed to adopt a concurrent budget resolution for fiscal year 1999, the Congressional Budget Act is unenforceable, absent the establishment of budget allocations for committees in the House. Therefore, the resolution authorizes the chairman of the Committee on the Budget to publish allocations contemplated by a section 302(a) of the Congressional Budget Act in the Congressional Record. On September 18th of 1997, the House adopted recommendations of a 12- member bipartisan task force on ethics reform with certain amendments which included not only changes to the standing rules of the House, but also freestanding directives to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Those freestanding directives address committee agendas, committee staff, meetings and hearings, public disclosure, requirements to constitute a complaint, duties of the chairman and ranking member, investigative and adjudicatory subcommittees, standard of proof for adoption of statement of alleged violation, subcommittee powers, due process rights of respondents, and committee reporting requirements. In order to have force and effect in the 106th Congress, the freestanding provisions of H. Res. 168 are being carried forward by the resolution. Mr. Speaker, on November 13th, 1997, the House approved H. Res. 326, which provided an exception for the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight to temporarily establish an eighth subcommittee for the remainder of the 105th Congress. This rules package allows the committee to again establish an eighth subcommittee to accommodate the need for extensive oversight over the census. The Committee on Rules believes that the type of oversight which is needed for issues such as sampling, questionnaire content, and continuous measurement cannot be done effectively by the full committee or by its other subcommittees. Therefore, this resolution grants the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight another waiver of clause 5(d) of rule X to permit an eighth subcommittee for the duration of the 106th Congress. The resolution contains a provision continuing the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China in the 106th Congress. The Select Committee, ably chaired by my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), was established by House adoption of H. Res. 463 on June 18, 1998, by an overwhelming vote of 409-10. The Select Committee, operating in an extraordinary atmosphere of bipartisan cooperation, has produced a thorough and detailed report addressing the question of whether U.S. national security has been endangered by certain technology transfers to the People's Republic of China during the Clinton administration. The report was agreed to by all nine members of the Select Committee, on both the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle, and all the members are also in agreement on the need to briefly, I underscore ``briefly,'' extend the life of the Select Committee. The report of the Select Committee, however, is classified. Solely for the purpose of declassification and public release of the report of the Select Committee, the Select Committee will be continued in the 106th Congress for 3 months. The procedural authorities at the disposal of the Select Committee are limited by the language in the rules package and there are no additional funds authorized. The Select Committee will be maintained by unobligated balances remaining from the establishing resolution of the 105th Congress. Finally, section 3 makes it in order to separately consider a resolution introduced by the majority leader or his designee, amending clause 5 of rule XXVI to conform the House gift rule to the Senate gift rule. The resolution shall be debatable for 1 hour, equally divided and controlled by the majority leader and the minority leader or their designees. At this point, Mr. Speaker, I would like to include for the Record a section-by-section summary of H. Res. 5, as well as other relevant material. And also, pursuant to section 2 of this resolution, and as the designee of the majority leader, I will be inserting for the Record certain extraneous and tabular information for the purpose of establishing a legislative history to the recodification package that we have put into place after 2 years of long and drawn-out work. Mr. Speaker, I think it would be fair to characterize this House rules package as one of the most bipartisan in decades. The overwhelming majority of the changes provided for in this package were developed by a bipartisan task force of the House Rules Committee. Working extensively over the past 2 years with the nonpartisan Office of the parliamentarian, the task force developed a more rational and orderly set of House rules, and their recommendations are fully embedded in this resolution. Adopting the rules of the House in a recodified format will make the work of the House easier to understand. The House has not undertaken a comprehensive revision of its rules since 1880. Many of the previous rules are obsolete, confusing, misleading, incomplete and poorly organized. Some of the rules have been understood and applied inconsistently due to the awkward way in which the those rules were drafted. The result is that the legislative process and the activities of the House frequently prove difficult to learn and understand, much less master. I want to commend my colleagues on the other side (Mr. Moakley, Mr. Frost, Mr. Hall, and Mrs. Slaughter) for the tremendous effort that they and their staffs have put into this project. We owe special thanks to the parliamentarians, who spent countless hours, weeknights and weekends drafting the new structure of the rules. As a result of their work, the rules of the House for the 106th Congress will be more logical and user-friendly. Specifically, the rules have been condensed from 51 to 28. Obsolete and archaic provisions have been removed, but the most important citations have been retained for purposes of consistency with precedent and practice. These are significant bipartisan institutional reforms which will make it easier for Members to do their work, and for the average American to understand and appreciate the legislative process. In addition to the recodification that makes up the vast majority of H. Res. 5, the resolution makes a number of technical changes to the standing rules of the House, and those are contained in section 1 of the resolution. For example: The name of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight will be changed to the Committee on Government Reform. The name of the Committee on House Oversight will be changed to the Committee on House Administration. The name of the Committee on National Security will be changed to the Committee on Armed Services. The resolution clarifies that the Speaker appoints and sets the annual rate of pay for employees of the Office of the Historian, which was established in old clause X of Rule I in the 101st Congress. An earlier form of this clause provided for the seven-year establishment of an Office for the Bicentennial to coordinate the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the House of Representatives. The management, supervision, and administration of the Office was under the direction of the Speaker and was staffed by a professional historian appointed by the Speaker on a non-partisan basis. In 1984, the Office of Bicentennial was removed from the standing rules and established by law for the remainder of its existence. This technical change clarifies that the Speaker appoints and sets the annual rate of pay for employees of the Office of the Historian. The requirement that the full text of a resolution proposing a question of the privilege of the House to read could be dispensed with by unanimous consent at the point of its initial announcement to the House. Questions of privilege are brought before the House in the form of a resolution, which may be called up by any Member after proper notice and announcement of the form of the resolution. Currently, rule IX requires that a Member giving notice of a question of the privileges of the House orally announce (read) the full text of his proposed resolution. If the Speaker rules that the question of privilege is admissible, the resolution is required to be read in full when it is called up. Therefore, the requirement that it be read at the point of its initial announcement to the House is unnecessary and redundant. This change would make it possible in cases of mutual convenience to dispense with the oral announcement by unanimous consent. As part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Congress passed the Budget Enforcement Act containing reforms of the budget process dealing with various procedural and enforcement matters. Due to the breadth and scope of these reforms, there are four areas where technical amendments are necessary to conform the rules of the House with various statutory laws relating to the budget process. The areas of technical correction involve oversight requirements of the Budget Committee, the consideration of bills providing new entitlement authority, the submission of views and estimates on the President's budget, and the application of certain points of order relating to the timing of consideration of legislation. These are very minor and technical changes that are necessary to remove current conflicts between the Budget Act and the rules of the House. H. Res. 6 in the 104th Congress included a provision in clause 2 of rule X which requires committees to approve an oversight plan before February 15th of the first session of each Congress and submit it to the Government Reform and Oversight Committee and the House Oversight Committee. In addition, the rule established a point of order against consideration of the entire committee funding resolution on the House floor if the oversight plan was not adopted and submitted before February 15. In 1997, the committee assignment process, on both sides of the aisle, was not completed by February 15 and certain committees were unable to organize in time. Also, the Ethics Committee was unable to organize until September 1997 due to the establishment of the Ethics Reform Task Force. Consideration of the Committee funding resolution on the floor should not be tied to the adoption of oversight plans by committees, particularly if one or both parties have not completed the committee assignment process. The purpose of the rule change was to encourage committees to plan oversight activities in advance, and adopt those plans in a public session. Therefore, the resolution retains the February 15 date to encourage committees to adopt their oversight plans early. Clause 5(d) of House Rule X limits the number of subcommittees that a committee may have to not more than five subcommittees. Exemptions are provided for the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. To facilitate more responsible programmatic oversight of executive branch agencies and programs, the resolution permits those committees subject to the five subcommittee limitation to establish a sixth subcommittee if one of the six subcommittees is an ``oversight'' subcommittee. H. Res. 5 in the 105th Congress permitted committees to adopt a rule or motion permitting an equal number of its majority and minority party Members to question a witness for not longer than 30 minutes. Also, the rule change permitted committees to adopt a rle or motion permitting committee staff for its majority and minority party members to question a witness. The legislative history accompanying this change established an aggregate cap of 60 minutes on Member or staff questioning. This resolution clarifies the rule allowing extended Member questioning and staff questioning to address ambiguities in its implementation. This will eliminate any confusion surrounding the question of whether an aggregate cap on extended Member questioning or staff questioning exists under the rule. The change in the rules in clause 2(m) of rule XI relating to subpoenas for documents issued by House committees is designed to clarify that a subpoena need not be returned to a formal meeting or hearing of a committee. A committee may prescribe the terms of return other than at a meeting or hearing of the committee. The practice of pairing, which involves absent Members arranging with other absent members on opposite sides of a specified question the ability to stipulate how they would have voted, would be eliminated in favor of the more certain system of putting a statement in the Record as to how the Member would have voted, which appears immediately after the vote. The headings for these statements will read ``Stated Yea'' or ``Stated Nay.'' These statements do not have to be read from the floor if they are submitted in a timely fashion to the Record clerks (generally 1 or 2 hours after the vote). If a significant time has elapsed since the vote, a Member can ask unanimous consent on the floor that his statement of how he might have voted appear immediately after the vote. The resolution extends the Speaker's authority to postpone votes to any vote on an original motion to instruct conferees. The Speaker has the discretionary authority under Rule XX, clause 8 to postpone certain questions and to ``cluster'' them for voting at a designated time or place in the legislative schedule. Currently, the list of questions on which record votes may be postponed does not include the motion to instruct conferees at the time of their appointment (although it does include the ``20-day'' motion). The Speaker's authority to reduce to five minutes the voting time on postponed votes would be extended to all postponed questions, and on questions incidental thereto, so long as the first vote on a question in a series of questions is no less than 15 minutes. Currently, the first record vote in a series of postponed questions has to be a 15- minute vote even if immediately following another record vote on a non- postponed question. In particular, a vote on a motion to reconsider or a motion to table a motion to reconsider--even though held not to abrogate the Chair's authority to continue 5-minute voting on a series of postponed questions--nevertheless must be a 15-minute vote. This change would allow even the first in a series of postponed questions to be a 5- minute vote so long as the first record vote in any unbroken series were 15 minutes. More specific, votes ``incidental'' to postponed questions could be conducted as 5-minute votes. In the rules of the House for the 105th Congress, the Transportation Committee's jurisdiction included ``measures related to the construction or maintenance of roads and bridges, other than appropriations therefor.'' This clause also contained a proviso which provides that ``it shall not be in order for any bill providing for general legislation in relation to roads to contain any provision for any specific road nor for any bill in relation to a specific road to embrace a provision in relation to any other specific road.'' In the recodified form of the House rules, this proviso would have been transferred to clause 3 of Rule XXI. However, the provision will be deleted by the resolution because it is obsolete. Clause 8 of rule XXIV (Code of Official Conduct) prohibits a Member or officer of the House from retaining an employee who does not perform official duties commensurate with the compensation received in the offices of the employing authority. The resolution conforms House rules with other statutory changes which permit telecommuting by federal employees. It is anticipated that the House Administration Committee would follow up with appropriate regulations defining what is permissible under the rule. Finally, section 1 contains two ethics-related rules changes which were recommended in a bipartisan fashion by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The first change closes an existing loophole in the rules by requiring committee consultants to abide by the key provisions of the Code of Official Conduct. Those provisions include the requirement that they conduct themselves in a manner which reflects creditably on the House, the conflict-of-interest provisions, and the gift rule. The second change conforms House rules to recent Supreme Court decisions relating to honoraria earned by certain lower level Federal employees. Such employees would be permitted to receive honoraria, such as compensation for an article, speech, or appearance, for activities not related to official duties. Section 2 of the resolution consists of ``Separate Orders'' which do not change any of the standing rules of the House. These are more or less housekeeping provisions which deem certain actions or waive the application of certain rules of the House. For example: Because Congress failed to adopt a concurrent budget resolution for fiscal year 1999, the Congressional Budget Act is unenforceable absent the establishment of budget allocations for committees in the House. Therefore, the resolution authorizes the chairman of the Budget Committee to publish allocations contemplated by section 302(a) of the Congressional Budget Act in the Congressional Record. On September 18, 1997, the House adopted the recommendations of a 12- member bipartisan task force on ethics reform with certain amendments, which included not only changes to the standing rules of the House but also free-standing directives to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Those free-standing directives address committee agendas, committee staff, meetings and hearings, public disclosure, requirements to constitute a complaint, duties of the chairman and ranking member, investigative and adjudicatory subcommittees, standard of proof for adoption of statement of alleged violation, subcommittee powers, due process rights of respondents, and committee reporting requirements. In order to have force and effect in the 106th Congress, the free-standing provisions of H. Res. 168 are being carried forward by the resolution. When the House adopted H. Res. 5 in the 104th Congress, it adopted a new provision [House Rule X, clause 5(d)] which stipulates that no House committee ``shall have more than five subcommittees.'' The rule made an exception for the Government Reform Committee, the panel was authorized by the rule to have ``no more than seven'' subcommittees. Government Reform was granted the exception because it absorbed the functions of two standing committees (District of Columbia and Post Office and Civil Service), which the House abolished on January 4, 1995. On November 13, 1997, the House approved H. Res. 326, which provided an exception for the Committee on Government Reform to temporarily establish an eighth subcommittee for the remainder of the 105th Congress. This rules package allows the Committee to again establish an eighth subcommittee to accommodate the need for extensive oversight over the census. The Rules Committee believes that the type of oversight that is needed for issues such as sampling, questionnaire content, and continuous measurement cannot be done effectively by the full Committee or by its other subcommittees. Therefore, this resolution grants the Government Reform Committee another waiver of clause 5(d) of rule X to permit an eighth subcommittee for the duration of the 106th Congress. The resolution contains a provision continuing the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns With the People's Republic of China in the 106th Congress. The Select Committee, ably chaired by my California colleague, Mr. Cox, was established by House adoption of H. Res. 463 on June 18, 1998 by an overwhelming vote of 409-10. The Select Committee, operating in an extraordinary atmosphere of bipartisan cooperation, has produced a thorough and detailed report addressing the question of whether U.S. national security has been endangered by certain technology transfers to the People's Republic of China during the Clinton administration. The report was agreed to by all nine members of the Select Committee--on both sides of the aisle-- and all the members are also in agreement on the need to briefly extend the life of the Select Committee. The Select Committee's report, however, is classified. Solely for the purpose of declassification and public release of the Select Committee's report, the Select Committee will be continued in the 106th Congress for 3 months. The procedural authorities at the disposal of the Select Committee are limited by the language in the rules package, and there are no additional funds authorized. The Select Committee will be maintained by unobligated balances remaining from the establishing resolution of the 105th Congress. Finally, section 3 makes it in order to separately consider a resolution introduced by the majority leader or his designee, amending clause 5 of rule XXVI to conform the House gift rule to the Senate gift rule. The resolution shall be debatable for 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the majority leader and the minority leader or their designees. At this point, Mr. Speaker, I would like to include for the Record a section-by-section summary of H. Res. 5, as well as other relevant material. Also, pursuant to section 2 of this resolution and, as the designee of the majority leader, I will be inserting for the Record certain extraneous and tabular information for the purpose of establishing a legislative history relating to the recodification of the rules of the House. Section-by-Section Summary of Substantive Changes Contained in H. Res. 5--Adopting House Rules for the 106th Congress 1. Redesignation of Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. The Committee on Government Reform and Oversight is redesignated as the Committee on Government Reform in each place it appears in the rules. 2. Redesignation of Committee on House Oversight. The Committee on House Oversight is redesignated as the Committee on House Administration in each place it appears in the rules. 3. Redesignation of Committee on National Security. The Committee on National Security is redesignated as the Committee on Armed Services in each place it appears in the rules. 4. Office of the Historian. Clarifies that the Speaker appoints and sets the annual rate of pay for employees of the Office of the Historian. [Rule II, clause 7] 5. Notice of form of question of privilege. The requirement that the full text of a resolution proposing a question of the privilege of the House be read could be dispensed with by unanimous consent at the point of its initial announcement to the House. [Rule IX, clause 2(a)(1)] 6. Budget Process. These provisions are necessary to conform certain rules of the House with the amendments made to the Budget Act by the Balanced Budget Enforcement Act of 1997. These changes relate to the oversight requirements of the Budget Committee, the consideration of bills providing new entitlement authority, and the submission of views and estimates on the President's budget. [Rule X: clause 1(b)(4); clause 2(b)(1); clause 4(f); clause 4(g)] 7. Committee oversight plans. The prohibition against the consideration of any committee expense resolution when a committee has not adopted and submitted its oversight plans to the Committee on House Administration and the Committee on Government Reform by February 15 of the first session of the Congress would be repealed. [Rule X, clause 2(d)(2)] 8. Service on the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The House rule requiring four members to rotate off the Standards Committee every Congress would be eliminated. The House rule prohibiting Members from serving more than two Congresses in any period of three successive Congresses on the Standards Committee would be amended to prohibit Members from serving more than three Congresses in any period of five successive Congresses. [Rule X, clause 5] 9. Oversight Subcommittees. The restriction on committees maintaining more than five subcommittees would be maintained in the rule, while committees that maintain a subcommittee on oversight would be restricted to not more than six subcommittees. [Rule X, clause 5(d)] 10. Exceptions to five-minute rule in hearings. The rule, adopted at the beginning of the 105th Congress, to permit committees to adopt a rule or motion to extend questioning for selected majority and minority members and to permit the questioning of witnesses by staff is clarified to address ambiguities in the rule. [Rule XI, clause 2(j)] 11. Subpoenas. The House rule granting committees authority to issue subpoenas is clarified to state the common practice that a subpoena may specify the terms of return other than at a meeting or hearing of a committee or subcommittee. [Rule XI, clause 2(m)] 12. Abolishment of pairs other than ``live pairs.'' The practice of pairing, which involves absent Members arranging with other absent Members on opposite sides of a specified question the ability to stipulate how they would have voted, would no longer be permitted. However, ``live pairs,'' which involve an agreement between one Member who is present and voting and another on the opposite side of the question, who is absent, would continue to be permitted. [Rule XX, clause 8] 13. Postponement of vote on original motion to instruct conferees. The Speaker's current authority to postpone votes would be extended to any vote on an original motion to instruct conferees. [Rule XX, clause 8] 14. Five-minute voting. The Speaker's authority to reduce to five minutes the voting time on postponed votes would be extended to all postponed questions, and on questions incidental thereto, so long as the first vote on a question in a series of questions is no less than 15 minutes. [Rule XX, clause 10] 15. Elimination of Specific Road Point of Order. The obsolete point of order against consideration of a general roads bill containing provisions relating to specific roads is deleted. [Rule XXI, clause 3] 16. Technical amendments. The requirement that a House employee must perform duties commensurate with the compensation received ``in the offices of the employing authority'' is modified to conform with other statutory changes which permit telecommuting by federal employees. [Rule XXIV, clause 8(a)] To conform with administrative changes put in place at the beginning of the 104th Congress, ``Chief Administrative Officer'' is substituted for ``Clerk'' with respect to the entity responsible for dispersing the pay of officers and employees of the House. [Rule XXIV, clause 1] 17. Consultants. Consultants would be required to abide by the key provisions of House rule XXIV, the Code of Official Conduct, including the requirement that they conduct themselves in a manner that reflects creditably on the House, the conflict-of-interest provision, and the gift rule. [Rule XXIV, clause 14(b)] 18. Honoraria. Certain lower-level House employees would be permitted to receive honoraria (i.e., compensation for an article, speech, or appearance) for activities not related to official duties. [Rule XXVI, clause 2] Section 2. Separate Orders 1. Budget Enforcement. This provision authorizes the chairman of the Committee on the Budget to publish budget allocations contemplated by section 302(a) of the Congressional Budget Act in the Congressional Record pending the adoption by the Congress of a concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1999. Once published, those budget levels shall be effective in the House as though established by passage of a concurrent resolution on the budget. This provision also clarifies the application of section 315 of the Congressional Budget Act with respect to points of order raised under section 303 of the Budget Act (relating to consideration of spending or revenue measures prior to the adoption of a concurrent resolution on the budget.) 2. Tenure on the Budget Committee. Clause 5(a)(2) of House rule X prohibits Members from serving on the Budget Committee for more than 4 congresses (8 years) in any period of six successive congresses (12 years). The applicability of this rule would be waived for the duration of the 106th Congress. 3. Standards Committee rules. The free-standing directives of H. Res. 168 of the 105th Congress (sections 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, and 21) regarding ethics reform would be carried forward in the 106th Congress. 4. Census Subcommittee. Clause 5(d) of House rule X restricts House committees from establishing more than 5 subcommittees, with an exception for the Committee on Government Reform, which is permitted to have seven. For the purpose of effective oversight of the census, this provision provides a waiver for the Committee on Government Reform to have eight subcommittees in the 106th Congress. 5. Explanatory Material Relating to Recodification of Rules. This provision gives the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader or their designees the ability to submit certain extraneous and tabular information in the Congressional Record for the purpose of legislative history relating to the recodification of the standing rules of the House. 6. Continuance of Select Committee. This provision establishes in the 106th Congress a Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns With the People's Republic of China solely for the purpose of completing the declassification and public release of its report prepared by the Select Committee of the 105th Congress. [The Select Committee was established by the House agreeing to H. Res. 463 on June 18, 1998 by a vote of 409- 10.] The procedural authorities of the Select Committee contained in sections 8 and 9 of H. Res. 463, relating to transfers of information and information gathering, shall be limited in the 106th Congress to enforcing requests for information issued before January 3, 1999 and to issue and enforce requests directly related to the declassification and public release of the Select Committee's report. Also, the provisions of section 10 of H. Res. 463, relating to tax information, shall not apply in the 106th Congress. Expenses of the Select Committee may be paid from applicable accounts of the House which may not exceed those available as unexpended balances of the Select Committee from the 105th Congress. The Select Committee shall cease to exist on March 31, 1999. 7. Numbering of Bills. The first ten numbers for bills (H.R. 1 through H.R. 10) shall be reserved for assignment by the Speaker when introduced on or before March 1, 1999. section 3. special order of business This provision provides that upon the adoption of H. Res. 5, it shall be in order to separately consider a resolution introduced by the Majority Leader or his designee, amending clause 5 of rule XXVI, the House gift rule. The resolution shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader or their designees. Description of resolution to be offered by the majority leader or his designee The House gift rule would be amended to incorporate verbatim the text of a provision of the Senate gift rule which would allow a Member, officer, or employee to accept a gift (other than cash or cash equivalent) that he or she reasonably and in good faith believes to have a value of less than $50, and a cumulative value from one source in a calendar year of less than $100. No gift with a value below $10 would count toward the annual limit.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and to include extraneous material in the Record.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am going to take the next few minutes to respond to some of the criticisms of this package, but I do want to begin, as I had in my opening remarks, in underscoring that we are in the midst of what is a truly historic and extraordinarily positive development for this House. As Speaker Hastert said in his speech that he delivered in the well, he wants to rebuild the faith in this institution. There is no doubt about the fact that that is necessary, and it is very, very important. And while it may be seen by many as simply an inside baseball issue, trying to make the process of law-making more understandable for the average American is an important thing. Quite frankly, trying to make the process of law-making more understandable for the average member of the United States Congress is an important thing, and I believe that with this bipartisan package which we have been working for 2 years on, with the parliamentarians, with the Democratic staff, our very able Republican staff, we, I am happy to say, have been able to cut nearly in half, from 51 to 28, the number of rules that will govern this institution. So it seems to me that, having done that, we are making tremendous strides. Mr. Speaker, it appears that my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), is here and might like to make a statement. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), who has yielded back the balance of his time, be able to reclaim time so we can get words of wisdom from my very good friend here.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in talking about this spirit of bipartisanship that I had mentioned earlier, we have in fact worked in a bipartisan way on this issue of completely recodifying the rules, going from 51 down to 28 rules. 1880 is the last time that any kind of project like this was undertaken, so I think it has been necessary, and it is very, very appropriate. We have taken a lot of the outdated and obsolete provisions and made them history, and I think now have a package which does not substantively change the rules of the House themselves, but does in fact create a more understandable, workable process. I am very, very encouraged by that, and I am encouraged that the minority has chosen to join us in support of it. Mr. Speaker, there were a number of provisions that have been raised during the past little while, during the debate. I would like to take a few minutes, for the Record, to respond to those items, and then we will look forward to an exciting vote on the previous question, a motion to commit, and then what I hope will be finally passage of this measure. First, in relation to the question of granting Delegates the right to vote with respect to the Committee of the Whole, in 1993 a Federal judge found a House rule change to allow Delegate voting in the Committee of the Whole could be unconstitutional, so that clearly was addressed at that time. I want to say, on the issue of social security, I understand the desire of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to preserve social security, and we are very concerned about the preservation of social security, as was stated by the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) in his opening speech here today. But we not only want to preserve social security, we want to strengthen it, because preservation of the status quo in fact creates a very, very serious problem for those who are looking towards retirement. We desperately need to find alternatives for those who want to have confidence that their retirement is going to be there. Our goal is not only to preserve but to strengthen it, and I think we have a very, very good chance to do that. With respect to the issues that were raised by two individuals who had contacted me, I include for the Record letters that I sent to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Weygand) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler). The letters referred to are as follows: House of Representatives, Committee on Rules, Washington, DC, January 6, 1999. Hon. Jerrold Nadler, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Jerry: It was good to talk to you today about your ``Plain English in Law Rule'' proposal. I recall your thoughtfully prepared testimony on H. Res. 529 that you submitted to the House Rules Committee on September 17. As you know, clause 3(e) of rule XIII (the Ramseyer rule) provides that whenever a committee reports a bill, a comparative print of the amendment and the statute must be included in its accompanying report or document, if the bill or joint resolution repeals or amends any statute or part of a statute. During consideration of the opening day rules package for the 106th Congress, H. Res. 529 was discussed at great length. However, there is significant concern that the proposal would be difficult to institute in practice, and that it would be cost prohibitive and would tremendously expand the workload of House Legislative Counsel. If you would like to discuss this matter in greater detail, please feel free to contact me or Vince Randazzo at 5-9191. As always, I welcome your continued input on ways to improve House procedure. Sincerely, David Dreier.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I offer a privileged resolution (H. Res. 14) and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the resolution just adopted.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I was just talking to my dear friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) about how uncomfortable this situation is for all of us. Why is it that we are here? We are here because of our commitment to the rule of law and we are here because a great deal of courage has been demonstrated by a lot of people. President John F. Kennedy wrote a chapter in ``Profiles in Courage'' about Senator Edmund G. Ross, who stood against public opinion and did what he thought was right. And I will tell you, there are an awful lot of Members in this Congress who are doing the exact same thing. I want to congratulate the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and all of the members, frankly, on both sides of the aisle of the Committee on the Judiciary for the hard work and effort that they have put into this process. We are doing this because we subscribe to the Burkean view that your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment as well. And he betrays rather than serves if he sacrifices it to your opinion. This is about justice and the rule of law. Vote in favor of these articles.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my very good friend from Glens Falls (Mr. Solomon) for yielding me this time, and while we have all engaged in what is clearly a long good-bye, I would like to, as this is the last issue that we are going to be considering in the 105th Congress, join in saying once again how sorely we will miss the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) when he will not be a Member of the 106th Congress and to also join in saying to our good friend, Bill Crosby, ``Thank you very much for nearly three decades of great service to this institution.'' I am particularly honored that he was first hired here by H. Allen Smith, as Mr. Solomon has just said, who was the ranking Republican on the Committee on Rules at that time and a fellow Californian, and we were saddened with his passing just within the past several months. But Bill will be sorely missed, and we certainly wish him well in his future endeavors. Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago the American people gave a Republican Congress and a Democratic President a mandate to do a number of things to balance the federal budget, provide tax relief for working families, create incentives for private sector jobs and job creation, preserve the Medicare program and to promote quality educational opportunities for all children. The 105th Congress accomplished each of these important goals by sticking to fundamental principles while making compromises that reflected the political realities of a divided Federal Government. The Fiscal Year 1999 Omnibus Appropriations conference report which we are addressing here today does look at many of those very important national needs. In particular, I would like to applaud the negotiators for the $7 billion included to overcome the rapid diminishment and the readiness of our military forces. It also provides new funding to protect American cities from a limited nuclear missile strike, to fight terrorism, avoid the Year 2000 computer problems in government and to help victims of national disasters. While this final budget package is worthy of support, make no mistake. We all have acknowledged that it does have real shortcomings. The President, his supporters in Congress have proven extraordinarily resilient in treating every federal spending program as a sacred cow, and unfortunately opposing tax cuts at every turn, using the very specious argument that this poses a threat to the solvency of the Social Security system. Now, Mr. Speaker, I believe that more should be done to provide tax relief to working families and to ferret out wasteful federal spending and out-of-date government programs. I look forward to the next Congress including more Members who are committed to those policies that represent these values of hard-working Americans. With that I thank my friend for having yielded this time to me, and I urge support of both the rule and the conference report.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. DREIER. Reclaiming my time, no, I do not believe they should. Based on what I have seen, this resolution is a violation of, as I said, not only our anti-dumping laws but the rules-based trading system that has been put into place by the WTO and the general agreement on tariffs and trade.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is very troubling. It demands that the President impose a 1-year ban on foreign steel imports which is completely counter to our anti-dumping laws and the rules-based trading system that we have in both the general agreement on tariffs and trades and the World Trade Organization. Mr. Speaker, the bill is an outrageous Smoot-Hawley-style response to the economic difficulties brought about by the Asian financial crisis. Support for this caveman economic policy would show the world that the United States Congress is prepared to repeat the mistakes of the great depression. There is no question that American steel producers are facing a stiff test from foreign steel that is priced at devalued currencies. However, steel is not the only American industry challenged by the economic downturn in Asia and Russia and which threatens to spread to Latin America. In California, millions of working families depend on producing computers, electronic components, industrial machinery, communications equipment, aircraft, semiconductors, textiles, apparel, autos, glassware, engineering and management services and a whole range of agriculture interests, and all are facing tough times because of the very, very sad problems that we are facing with the international economy. Why are we taking one industry, steel, and offering it the most outrageous protectionist, special interest assistance while so many of those industries that I mentioned and so many workers go without help? Of course, my colleagues Congressmen Smoot and Hawley might simply propose that we build the same steel wall of protectionism around all of those industries as well. The line forms right out on the Capitol steps just behind the steel guys. The right response to the very real international economic challenges facing this country is to focus on broad, national solutions, rather than attempting to protect one single industry. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is bad trade policy. It offers nothing more than a rapid descent into a collapse of the international trading regime and a repeat of the 1930s. It is an insult to the millions of hard working Americans feeling the pressure of the global economy who do not work in steel mills. I urge opposition to this resolution.